A Brief Interlude from the Norm
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: We all know that each and every one of the Straw Hats carries or once carried a heavy burden on their shoulders. And yet they make no big deal of it, and act as though it were only natural to do so. But an outsider might not think so...


_**Author's Note:**__ I was describing One Piece to a friend, who asked me why I was so fond of One Piece. After a moment of thought, I replied that it was because the characters have dealt with more than their fair share in life, and yet smile and grin and face live with optimism—something a lot of fictional characters (and even real people) can't do. So I thought I'd try comparing them with a gloomy, dark character, and could only come up with one. Sorry if she's slightly out of character, but this isn't about her—it's about the eight main characters of One Piece._

_**Disclaimer:**__ All characters, objects, places, etc. mentioned as far as chapter 455 of One Piece belong to Eiichiro Oda. Buffy Summers belongs to whichever person owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer._

**A Brief Interlude from the Norm**

"I'm hungry!"

"Get _away_ from my maps, you moron! You're going to rip them again!"

"Ah, my dear Robin-chan… It would be a great honor if you would allow me, your most humble servant in the name of love, to make you any special snack?"

"Ooh, Usopp, you really knocked out five thousand sharks at once?"

"Why's no one paying attention to the fact that we just scraped an ice berg!? I'm slaving away down here, trying to stop up the hole!"

"Don't you dare go into my kitchen, you rubber excuse of a vacuum cleaner!"

"The Great Mighty Captain Usopp is never defeated, no matter what the odds!"

"Would you guys shut up? Some of us are trying to get some sleep here!"

"Sanji, I'm hungry!"

"Even if they were true, those odds don't apply where I'm concerned! I don't care what sort of tale you're telling, or how you need a stage to demonstrate! You are getting off that table before you hurt my maps!"

"Well, you wouldn't _need_ so many naps if you didn't spend half the day and all night training!"

"Franky, we all know you're perfectly capable of- Usopp! Get out of there!"

"Sanji! Food!"

"I don't care, moron! Just go away and let me take my nap!"

"Those are drying! Don't touch them!"

"And then? Usopp, and then what happened?"

"Oh, sure, the little baby in the cradle who can't get by without a more than a couple naps per day-"

"I just said! Get out of that room! Chopper, go help Franky."

"Why you-"

Chopper left with Franky at the same time as hands sprouted out of Zoro and Sanji's shoulders, covering their mouths and effectively silencing them. With Chopper gone, Usopp had no need to attempt to use Nami's table, and so the deck was suddenly quiet—well, quieter.

"I would suggest that you stop fighting before Nami decides to come up and hurt you," Robin said calmly, not even looking up from her book as she read on a desk chair. "And Sanji, I believe that you ought to return to the kitchen before…oh, never mind."

It was too late. Robin saw Luffy run by, his hands full of articles of food that he was busily stuffing into his mouth.

"Aaaaahhhh!" Sanji's attention was diverted from his fight with Zoro at once. He broke into a run after Luffy. "Don't you dare!" But, of course, the rubber captain did dare, proved by the way that he was stuffing all the remaining food into his mouth.

"What the…" Nami stared as a bulging-cheeked Luffy and fuming Sanji ran right past her the moment that she dragged Usopp fully onto the grass-covered deck, away from her precious maps. It took no more than two seconds for her to realize what was happening.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami snapped angrily. "What's the point of that fancy lockable refrigerator if you don't use the _lock_!?"

"I'm sorry Nami-san!" Sanji swooned as he went past her again—running space was quite limited on a ship, after all. "I just came out to deliver you and Robin-chan your drinks, and I didn't think I'd be gone from the kitchen long enough for-"

"You underestimated Luffy's eating habits!?" Nami demanded in disbelief. "I can't believe you! We're all going to die of starvation if you keep that up!"

Sanji was now on the other side of the ship, however, and therefore could no longer hear her.

"I doubt that it will happen again, Navigator-san," Robin supplied with a smile as she glanced up from her book. "Luffy's kitchen raids anger Sanji much more than the rest of us, after all."

"I know," Nami sighed. Glancing around, she noted that Zoro was already fast asleep once more. Well, with sleeping habits like his, it would be odd if he could not fall asleep and wake at will in a matter of moments; or that he could sleep through almost any ruckus—just so long as it wasn't _too_ chaotic, though there were examples of his sleeping through amazingly loud, chaotic times as well. "But _someone_ has to yell at these guys, or else they'd all die of starvation or drowning or…something."

Robin chuckled.

"I very much doubt that any of them would die so easily. The ones that lack in common sense have exceptionally good luck and superhuman strength to make up for it."

Nami sighed again.

"Well, so long as it's quiet, I might as well-" Nami broke off with a scream.

Instantly, everyone was back. Luffy came around the corner with deflated cheeks, apparently having swallowed the food; Sanji was close behind, his anger for Luffy forgotten in his anxiety for one of the ladies' safety. Chopper and Franky shot up from the hatch at the same time, shouts of concern dying on their lips as their jaws dropped to the ground. Usopp looked up from where Nami had dropped, him, and froze with wide eyes. Zoro cracked open an eye, blinked, and then opened both to stare. Robin was looking up from her book, staring at the object of everyone's shock and confusion as well.

The silence lasted for quite a while as the newcomer looked left and right, staring at the people around her.

"Great," the teenager finally sighed. "Another summons, I suppose. What do you want? A demon killed, or me for ransom or blood or whatever?"

Her words broke the spell that had everyone frozen in place. Instantly Usopp was up and screaming about attacks by a terrible teleporting demon, Chopper close behind. Franky was bringing out a saw (just in case she was an enemy—you could never be too cautious), Sanji was swooning, and Luffy and Zoro were demanding where she had come from, who she was, and how she had got there while Nami shouted over all of them in an attempt to restore order to the chaos.

Finally, she took a deep breath and shouted, "Silence!"

Her crewmates knew that tone of voice, and everyone fell silent at once. The newcomer blinked blankly.

Now, normally, Luffy was a cheerful, happy-go-lucky, single-minded pirate. However, the recent arrival was really, really grating on his nerves.

Again, normally, Luffy was a very simple-minded person. If he liked a person, he asked them to stay, and they stayed as long as he saw no reason why they shouldn't. If he didn't like a person, he threw them out, and that was the end of it.

So Luffy had no idea what to do with the girl that had appeared on his ship out of nowhere three days before. She knew nothing of how to handle ships. This in itself was no big deal—neither had he, at first. But he had learned, as had others such as Chopper who had been unfamiliar with ships before joining his crew. The problem with this girl was that she did not _want_ to learn. They would explain something to her, and the next day she would remember nothing of it. They gave her the simplest chore—scrubbing the wooden decks—and she seemed to find that _demeaning_. She had gone on about how terrible they were to do this to her; not to their faces, of course, but muttering to herself as she scrubbed the deck. And then she had sulked. She did not know that Zoro liked keeping an eye on people he didn't trust, and would tell Luffy all that he had seen and heard—particularly when he wanted Luffy to throw said person off the ship. And she was definitely far from being on Zoro's 'trusted' list.

But the problem was that she had become friends with Nami. She slept in the girls' room; she ate with Nami; when she was bored, Nami lent her books; she was allowed to sit and watch as Nami drew her maps. The list went on. So Luffy could not simply throw her out.

Again, if it had been this simple—Zoro didn't trust her and Luffy didn't quite like her, but she was best friends with Nami—Luffy still would have let her stay, at least until the next island. Luffy did not like hurting people outside of battle, and rarely objected to letting people in need stay on his ship. However, if he did not like the looks of them—and some of his crew would proudly say that (most of the time) he was an excellent judge of character in this respect—they got thrown off at once. But he could not make Nami upset, because she was his comrade, and each of his comrades were even more precious to him than adventure. The problem here was, however, that Nami was the _only_ one who liked her. Usopp had come complaining within the first hour of her stay, saying that she complained and sulked too much, even in simply telling them who she was; he had seen Chopper sobbing at something she had said before the sun had even set on the day that she arrived, and two times since; Franky had been yelling all through yesterday, for the girl had kicked a crate in frustration and opened a hole in the side of Thousand Sunny; Zoro had been horrified to find that she had drunken half his stash of sake, and angered when, upon confronting her, had been told that it was too bitter and that he knew nothing of good alcohol. Oh, of course, Sanji swooned and crooned as he did with every woman, but it did not escape Luffy that he became more and more distant from the girl in a variety of subtle ways every time that she took only a few bites of his food before pushing it away. And Robin…well, Robin said nothing, but Luffy did notice that she seemed to want to spend every night out on watch and everyday in the kitchen reading or talking to Sanji (the girl could not stay in the kitchen for long before she started complaining that Sanji was being a jerk and a pervert).

So Luffy had a dilemma. He thought about what he did know of the girl. Her name was Buffy Summers, and she had come from some place called Sunnydale. She fought demons (he had thought that was cool at first, but when he had voiced it, she had gone into a tirade about how tiring and horrible it was, and how she wished she could live a normal life).

What was he supposed to do now?

The deck was quiet. The deck was _never_ quiet—well, not before Buffy had come. Now everyone spent their time trying to stay as far from her as possible. Usopp did inventions in the boy's room, Chopper stayed with Usopp when he was not in the infirmary, Sanji stayed in the kitchen, Robin talked to Sanji in the kitchen, Franky spent as much time as possible repairing the ship, even when it was unnecessary to all other eyes…

He and Zoro mainly stayed out of her way. Nami, of course, spent every waking hour with Buffy.

Luffy sighed.

"I never thought I'd hear you give a troubled sigh," Zoro commented lightly as he came up beside him and sat down on the lawn that was the deck.

Luffy snorted. Zoro sighed. Luffy gave Zoro a 'look'. Zoro glared. Luffy glared back. Then they both sighed. The silence made the situation ten times worse.

SLAM!

Luffy and Zoro both jumped out of their skins (but made use of the movement to leap to their feet) and spun around to the source of the sudden noise.

Nami had slammed open one of the doors that led out onto the deck. For once, Buffy was not with her, but neither Luffy nor Zoro noticed or cared about that—the glint in Nami's angry eyes was rather distracting. It screamed 'death to all in my way', and they had a rather nasty feeling that she was going to consider them in her way.

Indeed, she came stomping right up to them.

"Luffy," she growled angrily, "Do something."

Luffy blinked.

"What?"

"That menace that calls herself Buffy Summers!" Nami screeched, throwing up her arms. This time, both Luffy and Zoro blinked. "Hasn't either of you noticed that she's been sulking, complaining, and kicking things in frustration her whole time here!?" The two men stared at her. Nami sighed. "Okay, I know, everybody knows that. You just thought that I didn't. And honestly, at first, I thought that she might not be so bad. But she just gets worse! She seems to think that there's no person in the _world_ more unfortunate than herself. And-"

"And you're assuming things," said Buffy, coming up behind her with sad eyes. "I thought you were my friend, Nami. But…" Buffy snorted and shook her head. "…I suppose the slayer isn't meant to have any friends."

"Didn't we already go over this?" Nami said, sighing in exasperation. "Everyone can have friends. I see no reason why you shouldn't. And by the sound of it, you have a bunch of really good friends, too, if they went as far as to bring you back from the dead."

"Weren't you listening?" Buffy glared. "I didn't want to be brought back!"

"But they did! And they cared enough to do their best to bring you back! No, don't contradict me. I know, you hate being back in the world of the living. I see no reason why you shouldn't, if you were in heaven. But that doesn't mean you have to be angry at your friends! You can be upset at what happened, but you don't have to be angry at them for worrying and caring and doing all they could to help you!"

"They weren't helping me!"

"They thought they were! Don't you see what I'm trying to say?"

"Yes! And it's ridiculous! They just wanted me back so I could go risking my life to save them again. I mean, I have no family or-"

"You said you have a sister."

"Dawn? But she's not my real sister!" Buffy missed the flash of uncontrollable anger that ignited in Nami's eyes just before her face frosted over. "She's the key! Do you know how hard it is to have to deal with a sister who's the key!? I can't take it! People wanting to kill her, knowing that all my memories with her aren't real… But I can't tell her that, because she'd be so upset!"

"So don't. Love her because she's your sister now, not because she was your sister in the past."

"It's easier said than done, you know," Buffy said coldly. "I can't forget that-"

"I didn't say to forget. I said to love her now. Not then. Now."

Buffy glared, obviously angry at the way she was not being heard. By now, everyone had gathered around to watch; they all could have told Buffy that her frosty tone was a grave mistake, for the frosty look in Nami's eyes was worse than anything that any of them had ever faced from their tyrant of a navigator before.

But of course, none of them cared to warn Buffy of the danger, and left her to cut the last string of Nami's anger. They had nothing against watching her be told off, and Nami's even colder tone proved them right in their guess of what was to come. But by the last 'now' of the words intended to be cold and frosty, her voice was beginning to rise and lava erupt in her chest. She went on, her voice and tone rising with the eruption in her chest.

"You know, I've been kind to you, listening to your problems for the last three days because you were new here, and I know how hard it can be to be in a new place, and maybe you were just stiff or something. I thought that maybe you just needed some loosening up, and then you'd be a little nicer and less gloomy. Maybe you'd sort of fit in with us, at least until we found how you got here!"

"Fit in with you?" scoffed Buffy, still not recognizing any more danger than an angry teenager in the face of her own building anger. "How could I? Everybody here's all happy and cheerful with no problems in the world. Especially that captain of yours—he just never stops smiling! Well, you people may have all had nice, comfortable, sheltered childhoods with nice, kind mommies and daddies and no responsibilities other than a couple house chores! Now you just drift around to find some sort of treasure, all nice and happy on this big boat of yours! But some people haven't had those perfect lives! Some of us have lived in pain and tragedy and hardships with more placed on our shoulders than we can bear, and we can do nothing but-"

"But bearing it anyway and keeping our hope." Nami's voice was low, and Buffy fell silent—she realized that maybe she shouldn't have said so much. "So we were all sheltered with no hardships, were they? Well then, let me tell you a bit about us."

Nami stomped to the side and yanked Usopp up by the collar.

"This is Usopp. He grew up in a small village called Syrup Village. His father left before he can even remember, and his mother died while he was still a little child. I suppose that a person like yourself would be angry at his father. You'd hate him and begrudge him for deserting you. But you know what? Usopp doesn't. He's not even angry at his father in the slightest. No; he's _proud_ of his father, and the greatest pride in his life is that his father is a pirate."

Buffy looked like ready to make an angry retort, and Nami's eyes narrowed.

"And Nami," Usopp spoke before Nami could shove him to the side to rant on. "Nami grew up with a mother and sister who weren't related by blood to her or each other at all. Her foster mother found the two of them on a battlefield. But when she was only ten, pirates came and killed her mother. She begged them to let her village go, and they agreed that they'd let it go if she brought a hundred million beli to them. She agreed, and spent eight years collecting that much money. She agreed to their one condition and joined those pirates in the meantime. Do you understand that? She spent eight years with the people who'd killed her mother, smiling and never letting them see a single tear, just to save her village! But when she was almost done, the pirates used a loophole in their agreement and took her money. And you know what? She was ready to try all over again!"

Buffy's eyes faltered, the angry fire in them flickering.

"And Chopper," Nami went on. "He looks like the most innocent, untainted of us, doesn't he? Well, when he was born—just a newborn baby reindeer—his parents and entire herd shunned him because his nose was blue. Then he happened to eat a Devil's Fruit, the Man-Man Fruit, and his herd threw him out by force. So he tried to go join the humans. But his human form wasn't completely human, and the humans thought he was a monster and tried to kill him."

"One man took me in," Chopper said, his soft voice now hard and angry. "He called me his son, and gave me a name and my clothes and hat. But he got sick…he got sick, and I tried to save him." Chopper took a deep breath, trying to steady himself and keep the tears from leaving his eyes. "I poisoned him."

Nami put an arm around Chopper and went on.

"And Robin? Oh, I bet you could never guess what happened to her. All through her childhood, people treated her like a demon. People made fun of her, threw rocks at her, and her mother was gone and she knew no father. The woman who took care of her treated her like a servant's child; like a responsibility. But she was smart, and became an expert at history when she was just eight. When she made her first friend, he was a runaway from the navy named Saul. Her entire island was destroyed by the navy—all because they wanted to read the Pone Glyphs and learn the hidden history. She saw Saul die right before her eyes, and the only reason she lived was because Saul's killer had once been his friend. He felt that if Saul had done all he could to save her, then so should he. And so she got away…but a bounty—a high one—was placed over her head. So she spent twenty years always on the run. Can you imagine that? For twenty years, everyone who offered to help her wanted to turn her in for the money or for a sense of justice. Everybody told her that she wasn't supposed to live—that it was simply wrong that she had ever been bored—until she couldn't help but believe it herself! A lesser person may have wanted to die—may have hated that friend for letting her live—but Robin lived on. She went on pursuing her dream for twenty years before she let despair overtake her!"

"I…I see," Buffy said, blinking as the turned her eyes from Usopp to Nami to Chopper to Robin. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just…responsibility can be a heavy burden sometimes, and none of you seem to-"

She didn't see all but Franky's eyes darken. The words 'responsibility' and 'heavy' had a great meaning to them.

"You think we don't know anything about responsibility!?" Usopp demanded harshly. "Ha! And I bet you think Luffy's most unfamiliar with responsibility of all of us, don't you!? Well, you're wrong! Luffy's the captain—he carries the heaviest burden of us all! Let me tell you a story: I was really mad at Luffy once, because he said that we'd have to get a different ship. So I defied his authority as captain and challenged him to a duel. Do you know how hard that was for Luffy!? We're his family, and he loves each and every one of us more than anything! But as captain, he had a responsibility; and he shouldered that burden. He accepted the duel… Anyone of us—except Franky, he wasn't with us yet—could tell you about that duel! How Luffy obviously didn't want to fight me; how I used his reluctance against him until he knocked me out in one punch! That was his responsibility as captain! And he couldn't afford to cry or complain about that, either!"

"Okay, okay!" said Buffy quickly. "I get it—I didn't see how half of you'd lived really hard lives, or that you take responsibility seriously. I'm sorry."

Franky snorted.

"You know, lady, just because a person acts super doesn't mean that they've lived perfect, easy lives."

"I know-"

"No, you don't know!" snapped Nami. "Half of us? Half of us! Then let me tell you about the other half! Franky built a bunch of battleships, and they were used to attack the man who'd raised him like a son and taught him to build ships in the first place! That man, Tom, was blamed for the attack and executed! Sanji almost died of starvation on a barren rock in the middle of the ocean, but survived because the man who was with him ate his own leg to let Sanji have the real food! Zoro lives only to become the greatest swordsman, because when he was young, the only person that he could never defeat died before she could attain that goal! Luffy spent his childhood being tossed off cliffs and thrown into forests at night and tied to balloons by his own grandfather, because his grandfather wanted him to be a strong marine and never listened to Luffy insisting that he wanted to be a pirate!"

Buffy was no longer looking guilty and humbled. She looked upset, angry, and hurt.

"Stop it!" Buffy shouted. "I get it! You guys didn't have ideal lives! But you have each other now, don't you? So don't rub it in my face that you're fine even though you've lived hard lives because you have good friends! My friends don't know anything about hardship!"

"Don't you get it?" Nami snapped back. "I'm trying to say that you have to _let_ those friends in! They can't just guess what kind of support you need! And you ought to be grateful for them!"

"Oh, stop acting all tragic," Buffy snapped, irate. "You all lived tragic lives, you say—well, how am I supposed to know that? You're just whining to me about how you've all-"

"_I'm_ whining!?" Nami couldn't believe it. "I'm trying to make a point to you! I'm trying to show you that everyone has something unpleasant in their past, and no one can help that! But you can help how you act now! You can look at what good you have, or you can look back on the days when everything was normal and just keep wishing they'd come back. You seem to like sticking with the latter, but that's so pointless it's sickening."

Buffy's eyes flashed, and she looked like she would attack Nami…

…But she disappeared.

Everyone stood there, blinking at the place where Buffy had just stood.

"I've never been happier to be rid of a person," Zoro finally muttered.

"Oh, I couldn't agree more," Robin nodded.

"Well, now that we're free of her, I suppose I can get back to my maps without interruption?" asked Nami, sending Usopp and Chopper a warning glare. The two teens gulped and nodded, backing away.

"I'm happy to inform you all that the ship is in super condition!" Franky announced, striking a pose.

"I should hope so, considering the amount of repairs that you've been making over the past three days," said Sanji, lighting a cigarette.

"Hey, don't be hypocritical," Usopp spoke up. "Even you, the one who can't even fight a woman opponent, were doing your best to avoid that…Buffy." At the last moment, he suddenly realized that Sanji's not liking Buffy might not be enough to spare him from an angry kick for insulting a lady.

"Sanji! Food!" Luffy called.

"But you just had lunch!"

"But I'm hungry!"

"So, Chopper, want to hear more about how I defeated the giant serpent?"

"Oh yeah! You got as far as how you swam in and out so fast that it tied itself into a knot!"

"Usopp, Chopper, you can do your little stories, but I'm going to be working on my maps, so don't you dare get in my way."

"Hey, I'm hungry too!"

"What? Franky! Don't side with Luffy!"

"He already did! Sanji, food!"

"Would you lot just _shut up_!? Some of us are seriously lacking in sleep here!"

"Then take your little nappy-nap, fungus head!"

"Would you care to repeat that?"

"Which part? Fungus head or nappy-nap?"

"Okay, that's it, you're in for it, princess!"

"Stop fighting, Sanji! I want food!"

"Me too!"

Robin, meanwhile, slowly made her way across the deck to sit in her chair and sip a mug of coffee while she read. She sighed contentedly as she listened to the jumbled shouts coming from all throughout the ship. Finally everything was loud, chaotic, and normal again.

Even if she did have to duck the odd flying object every once in a while.


End file.
